Yo, Shelly, we're both MOTs, bro. That should mean something. You a Boston guy, me a Philly guy. East Coast bros. Pro-Israelites. Go Heebs. Maccabees forever. That sort of thing. With that in mind, I'm a bit astonished by your enthusiasm over Donald Trump and his alleged pro-Israel stand since, in fact, he isn't. Now why do I say that, Shelly? Let me explain. As you know, Mr. Trump has gone on record as stating in The New York Times Editorial Board interview, that the U.S. "may very well be better off" if allied countries, like Japan, South Korea and Saudi Arabia, developed nuclear weapons. You got that, Shelly. Saudi Arabia with nukes. He also went on record with Chris Matthews that he wasn't going to rule out using nuclear weapons in Europe, saying, "I'm not going to take it off the table" which doubled down on what he earlier said in a Bloomberg Politics interview that the use of nuclear weapons against the Islamic State was a possibility.
Now we both know what's wrong with those arguments don't we, Shelly? Not the least of the subjects Mr. Trump has a difficult grappling with is, well, geography and the ignorance of such. For example, as we both know, Saudi Arabia is only about 800 miles from Israel. Let's assume that the Saudis don't have nuclear weapons now (though the US and the Israelis know they already do) by advocating that the Saudis develop nuclear weapons Trump clearly jeopardizes the safety of Israel. I mean, after all, the Israelis and the Saudis haven't been bosom buddies over the past millennia, have they? So, why would you want to fund someone who implicitly advocates for the destruction of Israel based on his ignorance of geography in the least and nuclear politics at best? Just give it to Hadassah.
The other facile-minded approach to the use of nuclear weapons against the Islamic State is that Mr. Trump apparently believes those weapons can be used strategically. In other words, he's under the illusion that nuclear weapons can be used as if they were precision bombs. Apparently, Mr. Trump has never seen the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If he had, then he'd know better. But if he were to bomb the Islamic State with a nuclear weapon what would be the effect on Israel? Once again, Mr. Trump's patent ignorance of geography comes to fore. One doesn't need to be Eratosthenes of Cyrene (who coined the word "geography") to understand the massive destruction of using such a weapon. But to make it easy for Mr. Trump, let's use a simple example.
Let's use Damascus. Now the distance between Damascus and Haifa is about 90 miles. That's it, Shelly. Ninety miles. Santa Ana to San Diego. A little less than Vegas to Needles. Now, let's assume in his eagerness to wipe out the Islamic State, a President Trump orders a nuclear strike near Damascus and drops an "Ivy King" bomb which is the largest pure fusion weapon at 500 kilotons. I mean, a President Trump wouldn't want to go with anything less, would he? He'd want to go with the biggest and the best the US has and the Ivy King is both. So, President Trump gives the order to drops an Ivy King warhead on or near Damascus (only 90 miles from Haifa and only 136 to Jerusalem) and what happens? Well, according to Nuke Map this is what happens: there would be at least 739,000 fatalities (recall 90,000-146,000 people in Hiroshima and 39,000-80,000 in Nagasaki) and approximately 800,000 injuries, but that's just the tip of the warhead, Shelly. We don't really need to go into things like the fireball radius or the air blast radius or the radiation radius or the thermal radiation radius though we should acknowledge that "third degree burns from thermal radiation would peel throughout the layers of skin, destroy the pain nerves and would eventually cause severe scarring and possible amputation."
No, let's cut to the fallout. Once again, according to Nuke Map the estimated total-dose fallout contours for a 500 kiloton surface burst with a 15 mph wind at 1 rads per hour would result in the following: a maximum cloud distance of 208 miles (remember, Shelly, Damascus is only 90 miles from Haifa and 136 to Jerusalem); a maximum width of 40 miles (Israel is about 71 miles at its widest); and, finally, an approximate area affected of 6,940 mi². That's about the size of Connecticut and Delaware combined or about 4,441,600 acres which would be about twice the size of Yellowstone National Park. Are you still with me, Shelly? In other words, if a President Trump, in his wisdom to annihilate the Islamic State, bombed them somewhere near Damascus (give or take a few kilometres) the maximum cloud distance would not only affect Jerusalem, but go as far south as Be'er Sheva. In other words, it truly would cause Armageddon at Tel Megiddo. So, what's all this mean, Shelly? It means that if there were a President Trump who continued to advocate the use and/or development of nuclear weapons in the Middle East then the survival of Israel as you know it, is, well, toast. So, before you pony up that $100 million dollars to Mr. Trump think about the long-term effects of what that donation may wrought. Will you think about it, Shelly? Just think about it. The survival of Israel may be in your wallet.